nightly news" and tomorrow here on "andrea mitchell reports." that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." follow the show online, facebook, and twitter. chuck todd with "meet the press daily" starts right now. as a flurry of diplomatic talks continue and putin announces he's pulling back some troops from the ukraine border, is putin blinking? and trump's accounting firm cuts ties with his company saying it can no longer stand behind a decade's worth of financial statements. what it means for investigations into the former president and his financial dealings. and what a school board recall effort in progressive san francisco reveals about the potential perils of liberal messaging ahead of the midterms.

messaging ahead of the midterms. welcome to "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd on a day in which there may be cautious optimism that tensions in ukraine could begin to ease if only slightly, but as always, let's watch what they do, not what they say. vladimir putin now says russia will partially pull back some of the more than 130,000 troops amassed along the ukrainian border. after meeting with the german chancellor, olaf scholz, putin said he's ready for talks with the u.s. and nato on weapons and military transparency. we're expected for president biden to speak about the situation in ukraine and the diplomatic efforts. how do you not welcome diplomatic efforts on something like this to try to de-escalate things? we'll bring you those remarks when they happen. the white house says the president has spoken with the french president, emmanuel macron this morning, and secretary of state antony blinken spoke with sergey lavrov

and encouraged putin to keep pursuing diplomacy. the leaked video was obviously intended for those in the west. this comes as u.s. officials warn some russian troops appear to be moving closer to the ukrainian border, not further away. the u.s. is still proceeding as if an invasion could be imminent. it's moved remaining diplomats to western ukraine. the white house is continuing to game out its response to a possible russian military incursion. lloyd austin meets today to meet with nato leaders in brussels. i have mike memoli from the white house, courtney kube at the pentagon, richard engel in ukraine, matt bodner at the white house. we'll hear from the president today. obviously he wants to put a pressurial stamp on where things are right now. you talk with folks that are following the situation closely,

mike, and it does appear that at least from the u.s. side of things a glimmer of optimism that maybe the strategy is working? >> reporter: i don't know if the white house would go so far. sometimes the light at the tunnel is an oncoming train. it's significant to have the president giving the kind of speech to the american people directly about ukraine at this moment given that he hasn't done that so far. the president has really only spoken about ukraine in response to q&a with reporters on their terms or in interview formats, in other speeches. this is the kind of speech that many outside the white house have been saying he needs to give. i'll quote michael mcfaul, the former ambassador to moscow, referring to a steech antony blinken gave saying president biden needs to give that speech and do it in chicago or detroit, somewhere in the u.s., because if the u.s. has to follow

through with the threats they've made as far as sanction and the like, there will be a cost that americans face both literally and figuratively, including potentially even further in terms of gas prices. so, this is an opportunity for the president, according to the white house, to speak about the hope that diplomacy can still succeed here, and we're seeing that in the phone calls he's continuing to make, president putin meeting with chancellor scholz today. the white house says they're in close touch with the germans as well in terms of getting a red on where that conversation might be. but there's also been a clear strategy from the white house to flood the information space and that's es ka collating further with the president himself doing that this afternoon. >> look, at a minimum, it has made putin having as always had to react. he likes having everybody react to him, and over the last couple weeks this strategy has forced him to be more reactive there. let me move to courtney kube.

stick with me, though, mike. secretary austin going to brussels. obviously, this is about getting everybody prepared for various scenarios if putin goes in to ukraine, how he goes in, et cetera. what do you expect those conversations to be like? >> reporter: i think the biggest thing about this meeting is portraying a unity among the nato allies. if there's one word that's going to come out of anything we see over the next few days in brussels, it's unity among nato allies. they want to show there is a united front that no matter what vladimir putin decides to do, whether he decides to invade ukraine, whether it's a large-scale invasion, whether he tries to pick off small parts of the donbass, whatever it is, that nato allies will remain firm. we'll hear a lot about how the united states and other nato allies have already been bringing troops in to eastern europe in an effort to bolster their defenses, to shore them up, to show vladimir putin that

they are there if necessary at the same time not expecting any change in the biden administration's posture about not sending u.s. troops into ukraine. defense officials i speak with say no matter what, even as we've heard about this accelerated deployment of russian troops and particularly russian capabilities in the past few days, there still is no plan for u.s. military to move in. instead, they are continuing to focus on urging any americans who are still in ukraine to get out. we saw the u.s. embassy in kyiv moved far west to lyviv. many personnel moved out completely. at this point, the nato meeting is all about showing vut than nato will stand firm as an alliance, chuck. >> all right. let's get the mood in ukraine. richard engel, i think the western media is trying to learn the delivery of president

zelensky, the delivery of his sarcasm. we have to remember he was a comedian before he became president, so there's possibly stuff he's been playing here with. is that -- was that always the intent of those remarks? and what is the level of urgency today in ukraine? >> so, the use of sarcasm, i'll go into that first of all. yes, zelensky was a comedian, played president on tv, then had a very successful campaign and became president himself. in his speeches he tends to be sarcastic, a little bit snarky, and he is angry right now. you can hear the tone of when he's speaking. he's angry that he feels that his country is torn between the united states and russia, nato, and russia, and he feels that -- many ukrainians feel they are a buffer state and they are being treated like a buffer state between these two great spheres of influence and are caught in

the middle. but the zelensky government is not perfectly in lock step with the united states. i spoke earlier to one of his top aides and he told me, as zelensky has said publicly, they still want proof, they're still not convinced that russia intends to invade, and they haven't seen proof from the united states that russia tends to invade imminently or not. so they themselves are echoing some of the talking points that we're hearing from moscow that this is something of russian hysteria. zelensky appears to believe that. his inner circle around him appear to believe that. so, yesterday there was this sarcasm outbreak that i think you're talking about when he said that tomorrow they're -- there's supposed to be a russian invasion and he was quoted in the media saying president zelensky expects a russian invasion tomorrow but apparently

he was quoting numerous media reports that -- we didn't report it but others are reporting that tomorrow is a potential day for an invasion, and he was being sarcastic about that. but i think that sarcasm reflects his frustration and general anger at what he feels put in a situation between two powers. >> richard, are we do read anything into -- russia talking more about diplomacy right now. how much of that should we say is connected to at least hearing ukrainian officials talk openly about not joining nato? >> so, this country and the people here are under a lot of pressure. so i think you saw that with zelensky mentioning the date tomorrow, had to back track, being sarcastic. another potential slip-up or moment of frustration where an ambassador, ukrainian ambassador to the uk, floated the idea in

response to a question from the bbc that maybe this country would give up its stance on joining nato. and zelensky himself said that maybe joining nato is just a dream and that his office quickly clarified and said, no, it is a dream, an aspiration, something that ukraine absolutely wants. but with this pressure that has been built up, and with the -- having so many russian troops pointed at ukraine's sovereignty, putting its sovereignty at risk, they are under a tremendous amount of pressure, and i think that is one of putin's goals here is to keep squeezing them until they either falter or make mistakes or potentially give up on that goal of nato membership. by the way, today in moscow, the new german chancellor suggested that there could be some sort of understanding, at least from his part, that expansion of security

in europe wouldn't have to come from -- at the detriment of russia's security, which is closer to what putin has been saying than other nato allies. only macron has come close to saying that. >> matt, there were a couple reports today that the russian parliament could possibly give putin the power to annex parts of ukraine on his own. is there an update on that? has that happened? that's one quick piece of business. but the second i'm curious about is what's russian media reporting today on what's imminent and what isn't? >> reporter: start with the first one on this recognition of the donbass region as independent states. that passed through russian parliament today but it took a different form than we were expecting. this draft legislation yesterday looks like it was going to go to the foreign ministry for kind of consultations at the ministerial

level first. today it passed and went straight to putin. he first acknowledged it at that press conference after his meeting with chancellor scholz today, saying he was just hearing about it. so he didn't really lean into it. but this is an important one to keep an eye on because it's kind of now given putin an option to kind of flip the board in a way if he wants to take things that way. the german chancellor pointed out an astute observation on this. say putin exercises this option and recognizes donbass as an independent state, it would invalidate the minsk agreement. what russia wants, they've been harping on and minsk and ukraine, minsk as a path to peace, but part of that is a reintegration into ukraine. so, again, flipping the board. as for what we're hearing from the russian media, like, the main talking point continues to be all of this is drummed up as

western hysteria, basically blaming what we're doing right now as the cause of this entire crisis. of course, we didn't move those troops to the border, but we are starting to see a little bit of an uptick in the kind of rhetoric we saw, for example, back in 2014 in the lead-up to the annexation of crimea. we heard putin today at the press conference with chancellor scholz saying there's a genocide in donbass. we've seen talking points like that kind of ratchetting up slowly on russian state media. hasn't surpassed the war hysteria narrative, but if those two were to flip places, that would be a strong indication they probably are considering going in. >> matt, do you just get the sense, though, is he buying time for now? he hasn't made a decision but is content on buying more time? >> reporter: i think so. i mean, you know, there's ban lot of talk today about is putin signaling he's ready to de-escalate. it's hard to see that. they're throwing out a lot of

signals right now. but at the core, he's holding his position. he's reiterating it again in this press conference today that, yes, we're willing to talk, but you're going -- it's like talks on our terms. we're not going to accept you distracting us with an arms control agreement in eastern europe. that will be part of a bigger package. in a sense, in that you could say he's playing for time. >> well, he's getting what he likes, which is a lot of attention from the world. and he's not going to give that up very easily. thank you all for getting us started. after the break, we'll unpack chaos of the last 72 hours and what's likely to come in the next few days, perhaps weeks, with the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. later, america's civic virus. with 16 different focus groups telling us about the crisis plaguing american voters and american democracy. plaguing american vorste and plaguing american vorste and american democracy indian?

ehh, maybe... how bout seafood? you know i don't like seafood. [collision beeping warning] [silence] how bout tacos? tacos. automatic emergency braking — one of six advanced safety features standard on every 2022 chevy equinox. find new technology. find new roads. chevrolet.

[sound of helicopter blades] find new technology. find new roads. ugh... they found me. ♪ ♪ nice suits, you guys blend right in. the world needs you back. i'm retired greg, you know this. people have their money just sitting around doing nothing... that's bad, they shouldn't do that. they're getting crushed by inflation. well, i feel for them. they're taking financial advice from memes. [baby spits out milk] i'll get my onesies®. ♪ “baby one more time” by britney spears ♪ good to have you back, old friend. yeah, eyes on the road, benny. welcome to a new chapter in investing. [ding] e*trade now from morgan stanley.

the u.s. and nato allies are preparing for another potential shift in escalation. it started in the russian parliament to recognize the independence of two eastern ukrainian regions. they've been controlled by pro-russian separatists since 2014 shortly after russia annexed crimea. western leaders are warning president putin that approving the resolution would be a violation of ukraine's integrity, some calling it a disaster because it would make the minsk agreement null and void. joining me now on the developments is the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor. good to see you. let me start with this -- on one hand, today feels as if at least what the russians are trying to send is message, we want more diplomacy, we're not escalating

anymore, we're ready to dial things back. oh, by the way, there's a cyberattract in kyiv right now on financial institutions. so watch what they say or what they do here, ambassador. >> absolutely watch what they do. even this so-called de-escalation and even the announcements that the russian military has made that they're moving their troops and equipment back away from the border, from the board we are ukraine, we haven't seen that yet. it would be welcome. it would be great if they do that. that would be an indication that they're serious about actually moving toward negotiation and not toward invasion. mr. putin, as we have talked about for some time, he's got two options. he can invade or he can negotiate. and all that we've been doing, all the united states has been doing and nato, unity as you all pointed out earlier, has been designed to pushing toward negotiation away from invasion,

to put costs on him for invading. so that's been the goal. and it's been successful, great, let's take him up on this negotiation idea. but you can't negotiate while there are 150,000 troops on ukraine's border. you don't negotiate with a gun to your head. we need to see it. we need to see it. >> give me your interpretation of shall we say the mismatched rhetoric from ukrainian leaders including the president on their ambitions for nato. is this on the table, do you really think? do you think this is on the table? >> when you say "on the table," here's what i think what president zelensky meant yesterday, and i think one of your reporters pointed this out. he said he had a dream of being in nato. i have a dream of things i want to do.

you know, other american leaders have had dreams of what they wanted to see. this is an aspiration, this is in their constitution as he pointed out. nato and the e.u. are in the ukrainian constitution as their direct your attention for foreign policy. so, that's his dream, his goal, his aspiration, and that dream is not on the table. he represents a sovereign country. ukraine is sovereign. it gets to decide who it wants to associate with, who it wants to work on defense with, who it wants to -- it's a sovereign country. now, if it does decide, if ukraine does decide to pursue that dream concretely by applying for nato membership, it is up the to the nato members, all 30 of them get a vote as to whether or not to accept the process getting started. but i do believe that he's committed still, very committed to becoming a member of nato. and so is it on the table? no. i don't think it's on the table. it's part of any consultations, not part of any agreement or

proposed deals. no. we're talking about a sovereign right of ukraine, and the open door principle of nato, and those are not on the table. >> i need to pause here for a quick second, ambassador. i want to alert viewers to president biden. he'll be delivering remarks at the national association of counties. he's expected to speak later this afternoon on the ukraine crisis. we're going to monitor these remarks. if anything comes up on that, we will bring them to you, but we do not expect ukraine to come up in these remarks. this appears to be about covid, infrastructure, and we assume public safety. ambassador taylor, i want to go to the other issue that the russian parliament did today in at least giving the -- beginning the pathway to perhaps annex these separatist regions of ukraine. you know, this clearly looks like putin looking for many ways

to declare victory without firing a shot. this could be one of them. how does ukraine respond to this? how does the appliance respond to this? >> this is very interesting. you're right. this is potentially a move that the russians could make. i don't think it helps them, actually. the minsk agreement that they're talking about -- here's an agreement that was negotiated at the point of a gun, at the barrel of a gun, under pressure of slaughter of ukrainian forces. president poroshenko had to sign that minsk agreement. it's lopsided in favor of the russians. and i think the ukrainians would be happy to see russia walk away from that agreement. it's a terrible agreement. so they would be happy to have it done. they won't be happy at any threats to their territorial integrity, which this would

represent. no one would recognize it. it would be meaningless in the rest of the world. no one recognizes that move by the russians, so no one would recognize this. it would be, however, an infringement of sovereignty and territorial integrity. so the other reason that i think people will be looking at this is it doesn't get putin what he wants. putin wants control of ukraine. he wants to control ukraine's foreign policy. he wants to have it back in the russian empire. and if the donetsk, donbass is not part of ukraine anymore, then he doesn't have a lever, putin doesn't have a lever anymore into ukrainian foreign policy. he would have to go back to invading, which he apparently doesn't want to do. he wants to negotiate. all to say if he walks away from minsk, that's good because it's

a terrible agreement, but if he recognizes those two bodies, illegitimate bodies, as independent, then he loses leverage over ukraine. so i don't take this too seriously. >> all right. let's assume he pulls back some troops. what can putin claim to have accomplished? >> this is a great question because he can -- indeed, chuck, i think he's already started to claim success here. he can claim that finally the west, the americans, nato, they're finally taking russia's security concerns seriously. he can say to the russian people, and this part is true, that he's been yelling at the americans and nato for years, eight years, nine years that they're not -- and they're not taking us seriously. he's been yelling about why don't you take my security concerns seriously? and now they can say they finally are. with all these troops, all this

force that i assembled to put pressure on ukraine as a hostage, they've finally agreed to take my concerns seriously, and they're going to sit down and sign agreements, treaties that will be submitted to the united states senate, that will be law that says they can't fly b-52 bombers closer than 12 mimes to our border or whatever. and of course we can say the same thing. we can benefit from these negotiations. so i think it will be a win-win for both sides. but he can clearly say that he succeeded in finally getting the americans to take his security concerns seriously. >> when you run the entire messaging system in russia and you control the message, you can declare victory even if you lose. ambassador taylor, always good to get your perspective and expertise. thank you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. good to be here. still to come, a new development in the investigation of the former president's financial records and business dealings as one major tax firm cuts ties with the trump organization. we'll tell you what that means next.

we'll tell you what that means we'll tell you what that means next it's a once-monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, rouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occured. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala. your home... for adventure. your home... for romance. your home for big savings. [ laughs ] hey, mom, have you seen m-- ew. because when you bundle home and auto with progressive, your home is a savings paradise. bundles progressive. your home for savings.

well, would ya look at that! bundles progressive. it was an accident. i was— speaking of accidents, we accidentally left you off the insurance policy during enrollment, and you're not covered. not even a little bit? mm-mmm. no insurance. no. when employees can't enter and manage their own benefits enrollment information, it can be a real pain. not even— nope! with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in a single, easy-to-use software. visit paycom.com and schedule a demo today.

no one thinks about their hearing until you start losing it. and then you think about it a lot. this doesn't help and the whole process of getting them is a royal pain in the ..... ear. if only there was a better way. this is eargo, yes right here. incredible right? what's more you get all the support you need all from here. sitting right here. welcome back. domestic affairs. a couple new developments and long-running investigations that used the key words of trump and clinton and can get everybody pretty fired up. let's separate fact from fiction. a letter released from new york's attorney general, we learned that donald trump's longtime accounting firm can no

longer vouch for a decade's worth of financial statements from his company, the trump organization. mazar's said it was cutting ties with the former president as well. in the so-called durham probe, while president trump and the right-wing echo chamber continue to make claims that clinton's campaign was spying on the trump white house, a new filing says not surprisingly that's not accurate. so what does all this mean? joining me now with the latest is our own investigative correspondent. tom, the words clinton and trump are involved in a story and we know people go crazy. so let's start with the accounting firm story and mazar's. what does this mean? does it make it easier for this to go from civil to criminal, one, and is the president going to have a hard time borrowing money from anybody and doing any business deals if he can't get an accounting firm to vouch for his financial records? >> reporter: sure. with respect to criminal versus civil, we've discussed today the

letter that was filed is part of an ongoing civil investigation and civil probe that was just where we happened to be docketed because there's this ongoing debate about whether or not the president and some of his children will have to sit and take depositions for the new york attorney general. this letter was included in a filing that's part of that. whether or not that makes things easier or not on the criminal side of things, which is an investigation that's being spearheaded by the manhattan district attorney, remains to be seen if, in fact, people at mazar's have raised questions about this and if mazar's is going to provide information or individuals there will provide information to investigators. that may change things both in the criminal and civil investigation. we haven't heard anything about that so far. it's probably too soon to say. we'll continue to watch and listen for any sort of developments along those lines. with respect to the president's financial situation and his business situation, you know, the trump organization exists and obviously has many employees and his children are involved,

but at the end of the day, the guy on screen, donald trump, is the person who is in charge and is the person who the organization rests on. and so, with respect to the statements of his personal financial condition, which is what these statements were, should now the president and his company have to get additional financing or perhaps there are covenants in the loans he has outstanding, it is possible that he will have to face banks, face insurance companies, and may have a difficult time either securing new funding or the funding that he has maybe subject to a change in conditions including those loans being pulled back. >> yeah. bottom line, if somebody doesn't want to do business with trump and has been looking for way out , mazar's may have given them their out. >> correct. >> durham is former u.s. attorney that's been held over from the bar, justice department

to garland to finish up his probe of how the russian probe was conducted is probably the best way to describe that. >> reporter: right. >> a filing was made regarding i guess a perjury charge that they have that they're going, and this filing has obviously taken off on the right-wing echo chamber to say something that it is not. tell us what it is and tell us what it isn't. >> right. well, there's an analogy being thrown that this is a modern-day watergate and that's an analogy that's not base on fact. so when you look at what durham says, and i'm merely representing what durham says, the analogy that some have said that this involves watergate and spying and people breaking into things, durham doesn't allege that at all. what he essentially says is that somebody who is acting as a gate keeper thinking external security guard in a company who would be working at the watergate, somebody who would be checking people coming in and out, would simply be noting who

was coming in and out and then, while they were doing that job, they were also getting paid or perhaps potentially according to durham providing some of that information to a third party, in this case, an exec toich kwho passed that information to an individual who'd done business with the clinton campaign. nowhere in this filing, and there would be busloads of people arrested, does it suggest that the president's communications or anybody in the white house's communications were intercepted or read. i think that's an important distinction as we continue to follow this, chuck. >> well, we will see. sometimes facts get in the way of a good meme. that can be problematic on social media. tom wehner with the facts, thank you very much. >> reporter: sure thing. coming up, if it's tuesday, voters are voting somewhere. what a school board recall effort in liberal san francisco today could tell us about the future of progressive messaging throughout the campaign 2022 as we approach the midterms. you're watching "meet the press

daily." watching "meet the pres daily.

feeling sluggish or weighed down? it could be a sign that your digestive system isn't working at it's best taking metamucil everyday can help. metamucil psyllium fiber, gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic metamucil. support your daily digestive health. and try metamucil fiber thins. a great tasting and easy way to start your day.

if it's tuesday, votes are being counted somewhere. today that somewhere is in san francisco. school board recall election is being fueled by backlash to some progressive policies. more than that, it might be a potential warning sign of progressives everywhere. when you have the phrase "even liberal san francisco parents" you may have a political problem. think they school board members are up for recall in the democratic city for pursuing symbolic liberal causes like renaming schools for people like dianne feinstein, has classrooms stayed shut due to pandemic restrictions. the recall effort has the backing of democratic mayor london breed, she had that enough is enough speech on shoplifting a few weeks back. and according to the "san francisco chronicle," he's attracted almost $2 million in

campaign finances. the political full-out as intensified as we approach the midterms and it doesn't matter if it's in blue america or red america. politico's jeremy white is one of the writers behind the california playbook. jeremy, break it down here. the votes are going to get counted tonight. it seems that everything is pointing in the direction of these folks getting recall. what's going on inside of san francisco politics? is london breed sort of cutting a new path here that's somewhere between progressive and moderate? >> i think it's easy to see this as sort of a backlash to progressivism. i would see it more as a basic competency thing. i have spoken to parents and activists who support this recall who have said we don't have any problem with the idea of renaming schools for people who are less problematic, but it

was an issue of priorities that they felt the school board was pursuing this rather than the much more pressing issue of getting those schools open. that's something you saw the mayor, london breed, suing the school board back when schools were closed, to try to force the issue. so certainly i think for some parents they felt that the board was focusing on these sort of more symbolic racial justice issues rather than on getting those schools open, which is not to say that they didn't see some merit in those efforts, it was a matter of where is the board oes priority. >> so, tell us what happens here, if this recall is successful. then what? >> if this recall is successful, the mayor gets to make some internal appointments until the voters can go and decide who they want to be their school board members. so certainly a concern i have heard from folks who are opposed to this recall is that they feel it would give the mayor a

disproportionate power to shape the school board. you know, i would say it's one of sort of multiple power struggles within san francisco politics involving the mayor and other players. >> there's also recall for the district attorney not now but later in the summer. crosscurrent here at all, covid sort of more of the organized shoplifting issues that san francisco has been dealing with? is it more about that? >> i would say the recall of the district attorney is fairly different from the school board recall in a lot of ways in terms of the motivating issues with the recall of the district attorney you have not seen elected democratic officials rally behind it in the way they have with the school board recall. i would say, though, i think there is a common thread there, which is some pervasive frustration or anxiety with some

basic quality of life issues, whether that's being able to send your kid to a school that's open, being able to walk down the street and feel safe, in both cases, the efforts attract a lot of big money, you see a lot of real estate and tech folks, for example, pouring money in, and that in particular with the district attorney recall has created some skepticism on the left about, okay, who's really behind this. but i do think there are some voters even liberal voters who generally vote democratic who are evincing some frustration here. >> well, it's a pretty expensive city to live in, so if you're going to pay that much to live the, i imagine you want to feel safe and like you said a good school to send your kid to. jeremy white from political playbook, thanks a lot. appreciate your perspective. >> thanks for having me on. still to come, america's civic virus. what over a dozen focus groups reveal about the fragile state

of the nation's democracy and what we need to do about it. what we need to do about it.ed h dove shows 97% less breakage. strong hair with new dove breakage remedy. number one beauty brand not tested on animals. to make my vision a reality my varilux progressive lenses provide seamlessly transition from near to far. with every detail in sharp focus. that's seeing no limits. varilux lenses by essilor. feeling sluggish or weighed down? it could be a sign that your digestive system isn't working at it's best taking metamucil everyday can help. metamucil psyllium fiber, gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic metamucil. support your daily digestive health. and try metamucil fiber thins.

a great tasting and easy way to start your day. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. i'm mark and i live in vero beach, florida. my wife and i have three children. ruthann and i like to hike. we eat healthy. we exercise. i noticed i wasn't as sharp as i used to be. my wife introduced me to prevagen and so i said "yeah, i'll try it out." i noticed that i felt sharper, i felt like i was able to respond to things quicker. and i thought, yeah, it works for me.

prevagen. healthier brain. better life. no one thinks about their hearing until you start losing it. and then you think about it a lot. this doesn't help and the whole process of getting them is a royal pain in the ..... ear. if only there was a better way. this is eargo, yes right here. incredible right? what's more you get all the support you need all from here. sitting right here. ♪ pepto bismol coats and soothes your stomach for fast relief

and get the same fast relief in a delightful chew with pepto bismol chews. ancestry's helped me really understand my family's immigration experience and what life must have been like for them. and as i pass it on to my daughter, it's an important part of understanding who we are. we've spoken a lot on this show about the impact of polarization. a new study caught our attention because it examines what might be at the heart of what drives today's toxic politics. it's not polarization, they claim, but isolation.

harwood breaks it down like this. the world is a scary place and to deal with that americans are self-segregating, separating out to find spaces and communities in real life or online where they feel safe. political leaders and social media companies realize they can exploit this situation for their own gain, creating versions of reality that make it hard for the public to tell what's really going on, leading to what the study calls a fight or flight reaction. americans are retreating or breaking into smaller and smaller tribes where they feel understood. in certain companies and political leaders, they're taking advantage of it. in other words, as the world gets wider and more stressful, our realities and our understanding of others is shrinking. and now that america's civic virus has been diagnosed, we're going to ask after the break this -- can it be cured? more on that in a minute. you're watching "meet the press daily." you're watching "meet the press daily.

indian? ehh, maybe... how bout seafood? you know i don't like seafood. [collision beeping warning] [silence] how bout tacos? tacos. automatic emergency braking — one of six advanced safety features standard on every 2022 chevy equinox. find new technology. find new roads. chevrolet. sales are down from last quarter, but we're hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uhhh... doug? [children laughing] sorry about that. umm...what...it's uhh... you alright? [loud exhale] [ding] never settle with power e*trade. it has powerful, easy-to-use tools to help you find opportunities, 24/7 support when you need answers, plus some of the lowest options in futures contract prices around. [ding] get e*trade and start trading today. we gotta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need, and we gotta do it fast.

[limu emu squawks] woo! new personal record, limu! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ woman: i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months after just two doses. skyrizi may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or coughs or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. ♪ nothing is everything. ♪ woman: talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. woman: talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. nurse mariyam sabo knows a moment this pure... ...demands a lotion this pure. new gold bond pure moisture lotion. 24-hour hydration. no parabens, dyes, or fragrances. gold bond. champion your skin.

welcome back. we're going to dive a bit deeper into america's civic virus and how we treat it. i'm joined by the president of the harwood foundation for public innovation and nbc senior reporter ben collins who has been following the role social media and online communities have on our political debate on our news media coverage and so forth. rich, let me start with you and what you found here and what was great about this you did this about 30 years ago so you were able to sort of -- you had some

context here. and i guess the one piece of good news is everybody is in agreement that we have a problem. we don't talk to each other enough. we're self-isolating. i guess if that's step one, but where do we go now? >> i think it is good news in the sense, chuck, we talk to folks in places as divergent and different as rollins county, kansas, rural western kansas, to south central ohio to new orleans and houston. no matter where we went, yes, people -- their lived experiences were different from one another. as you put up on the screen, there was profound agreement about what the challenge is today and what we need to do and what's the solution? i think first and foremost the solution is we've got to get together in our local communities where people can see and hear one another, where people can come together and work together, where people can get things done together, where

people can regain a sense of connection, a sense of trust, and really a sense of civic confidence that we have the ability to get things done together and then, i think, we need to spread that like a positive contagion across the country. >> i just want you to give me a little bit -- you did 16 different focus groups and you used our friend who many people are familiar with on my show, the man behind data download on sundays for me. you use the american communities project. and these were focus groups, right, long interviews about over what period of time? >> six months from june to the end of last year. each was two hours. they often lasted longer than that. at the end of these conversations people wanted to stay and keep talking. they would say to us, you know, i didn't know that we had the capability to do this anymore. i didn't realize that while we all come from different walks of life in this room and we don't

know each other, that we share so much in common and there's so much that we can build on together, and, chuck, that gives me great hope about our ability to get our self out of this mess. >> rich, the reason i brought ben collins on, i read this report and i was heartened by this fact that, ben, the world you cover, this is -- there is incentive. there is motivation to take advantage of this fight or flight feel that people feel, and here we are in order to fix this problem a bunch of tech companies have to stop doing what they're doing, am i right? >> i read this report and i was like, oh, i see this. i see this happening everywhere and it's in the convoy telegram groups where they are planning on making sure everyone has enough towels for the trip or blankets or food. people are doing this. people have a natural internal

inclination to try to find community even in the darkest moments of american history. the problem is the incentive structure of social media is to find community in really dark spaces. that's why you see the last year when people were isolating, they were finding community on the internet. the communities were just horrible. i just saw over and over again people falling into qanon because they stopped meeting together in person. so what do they find? they found the largest community they could find on the internet, the most open and accepting ones who happen to be these extremist movements on the internet. that's what you would get politically. the positive infrastructure out there for this doesn't exist to the extent the negative stuff does on the internet right now. >> and correct me if i'm wrong, ben, but there is not an algorithm, facebook or twitter, let's take those two, that actually tries to get people not to go deemer into their bubble

or in their tribe, correct? >> yes. >> everything is intended to emotionally target you to stay fired up about whatever the is bothering you inside your tribe. >> after all these years the thing that still works on these platforms is fear and the idea there is some other dragging you down and we must all combine together to stop the big, scary pariah at the top of it. that's how these social networks still work. it may just be how humans work, frankly. that's sort of what facebook has been saying, their talking point for a long time. it's how we behave. this is what we are. i don't necessarily believe that. i don't think we're inherently primarily or exclusively driven by fear like the social networks say but i think maybe advertising is and i think that's maybe the root cause of the whole thing. >> rich, let me bring it back to you. do the folks talk to you -- do they think the social media companies are making them more

divided? >> absolutely. without question. and they recognize that they are in some way addicted to this. and believe it is destroying our society and democracy and just to ben's last point, i want to add to that. it is true that fear motivates people. the question is what mitigates fear and what mitigates fear is connection, a sense of belonging, a sense that i'm part of something larger than myself, and that's what we need to start concentrating more in the country if we're going to inoculate our self against the civic virus. >> ben, has anybody cracked this code of figuring out how to try to use social media for good? >> people are definitely trying. i don't know. the problem is there's four of these companies and they pose this massive threat because they work in tandem to try to protect each other. so i don't really know how you can fix it once you get to that size and scale because we're all

inundated with these services. facebook owns instagram. google owns every conceivable thing you touch on the internet. i don't know how you overcome that necessarily. it's going to come from civic engagement. this report does a very good job of touching on this. you need to do this from the government level or just from the local level. it needs to overcome the infrastructure that was built on the internet. >> if they can break through it and then one local community at a time and perhaps, perhaps, you start seeing the breaking of this a little bit or people taking a little more control with these algorithms. i appreciate you trying to break through the noise with something that's very important. ben collins, thank you for helping us unpack it. mid-term news before we go to break, another democratic house retirement. congresswoman kathleen rice announced today she will not seek re-election. her south shore long island district is a d plus 8. her decision means three of the

four house seats will be open in november. rice is the 30th house democrat who will not seek re-election this november. that's nearly 14% of the entire caucus. on as we've said before that high number is not a sign of confidence for the party heading into november. that's all we have for us this hour. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." in an hour and a half we will be expecting to hear from president biden with an update on ukraine. also my colleague hallie jackson has a busy show. she will talk masks with dr. anthony fauci. masks, fauci, biden, ukraine in the 3:00 hour. my friend katy tur will tee it all up in the next hour right after this break. no, right now. sorry, katy. thank you, chuck. i'm katy tur. the allied west says it is doing everything it can to avoid a russian invasion of ukraine. with tensions, though, already high, there is increased